By ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ (GREEK) TÜRKÇE (TURKISH)
“You must be afraid, my child. That is how you become a law-abiding citizen,” the great French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) once wrote, excellent advice for anyone who questions the system. The system that in Cyprus has reached the zenith of its glory – but also the peak of its own fear of collapse – and sent to the dock of the Supreme Court, first a former minister, Marios Demetriades, over the “golden passports” scandal and in fear of the [European] Commission’s July report, and the Auditor General of the Republic of Cyprus, Odysseas Michaelides, for “inappropriate conduct”; because the abscesses left behind by the former president are popping up one after the other, such as for example, the Vasilikos Terminal! A note in parenthesis, I have clashed with Auditor General Odysseas Michaelides a few times and even “dedicated” a Sunday column to him. Writing and describing the – uncontrolled and clumsy in my perception – way in which he stepped over red lines and left people exposed who should not have been. I wrote, of course, with the due courtesy required of a journalist who respects his profession and the extremely rich language he serves and who is mandated by his mission to expose and criticise any public officials, state and party officials who in one way or another act arbitrarily.
The system, therefore, sent a top institutional official, the Auditor General, appointed 10 years ago by the President of the Republic – a political appointment, that is – before the court, although he did not face any criminal offence as the former Deputy Attorney General Rikkos Erotokritou did. All eight judges (in total disrespect of due process) beheaded him, as he described his suspension-firing. Well-known Nicosia lawyer Michalis Paraskevas said it is wrong for political decisions to be made by non-political persons, reminding that the appointment of Odysseas Michaelides was political. The 8 judges of the Supreme Constitutional Court, clearly in my view, defended the former President Nicos Anastasiades’ appointees, Attorney General George Savvides and Deputy Attorney General Savvas Angelides. Why? But apparently to protect the most corrupt system of interlocking vested interests and scandals that Cyprus is experiencing, according to my own allegations and those of the Panama Papers and the ICIJ-International Consortium of Investigative Journalists under the title ‘Cyprus Confidential’, which accuse the professional services sector of our country of circumventing sanctions and facilitating Russian oligarchs.
The subject of public debate here is no longer Odysseas Michaelides, because he has been definitively terminated. The issue is whether the Supreme Court itself remains exposed for ‘inappropriate conduct’? I will provide a few examples and you can draw your own conclusions. Five years ago I wrote the following in ‘K’ [Kathimerini newspaper] about the Myron Nikolatos case: “The President of the Supreme Court Myron Nicolatos was ‘Caught in the act’, by the Attorney General of the Republic of Cyprus Costas Clerides. As much as this sounds like an exaggeration on our part, poetic licence if you will, it is much milder than the heavy censure (to say the least), expressed in the statement of Costas Clerides (15/01/2019) against Myron Nikolatos, who, based on European standards, our assessment and especially common sense, should immediately submit his resignation and possibly be held accountable before a court of law.” We note the situation in question was that Mr Nikolatos was trying the cases of a bank, while behind the scenes he was settling cases with [the same bank] that allegedly involved his daughter and sister. Of course, Mr. Nikolatos did not resign, neither did his colleagues in the Supreme Court feel the need not to give taxpaying citizens the cold shoulder, and actually criticise their President, if only for the sake of appearances. Don’t bother looking for the relevant article because it was deleted from the newspaper’s archives… By the way, Mr. Nikolatos retired unscathed in 2020!
A second case where the Supreme Court can be checked for “inappropriate conduct” is that of the 1974 Missing Persons, when the ECtHR on 31.08.2021 made the following censure against the Supreme Court of Cyprus: “The Court (ECtHR) is also concerned about the reference by the Supreme Court (of Cyprus) to the anonymous ‘political dimensions’ of the matter as justification for the delay in the examination” of the case of the 1974 hero Christofi Vassiliou Pasia. What I wrote at the time was that “it is shocking that the Government Spokesman did not read the ECtHR decision and did not even bother to be informed of its contents before coming out to say that ‘the Law Office will evaluate the decision’, about a 29-year-old family man from Xylofagou, who, having been wounded during the first phase of the Turkish invasion, instead of staying at home to recuperate, returned to his outpost at the racecourse in Nicosia, opposite the then TURDYK [Turkish Regiment in Cyprus] camp. There, according to testimonies given in court, he was captured alive on 14 August 1974 by the invaders, tortured and executed by rifle fire in the mouth! This case will be assessed by the – in my estimation long-time exposed – Law Office, according to the Spokesman of the state, for which Pasia gave his life, leaving behind a wife and three underage children. The Law Office which 11 years ago (in 2010) appealed the 50-pages-long, erudite and shocking first instance ruling of Judge Phivos Zomenis of the Nicosia District Court and filed an appeal to the Supreme Court, which – in total neglect of fairness in my humble opinion – annulled the first instance decision? These unheard of judicial oddities were done so that now they all lose together at the ECtHR, and without any distress, especially without APOLOGY, to authorise the inexperienced yet unjustifiable Government Spokesman (M. Pelekanos) to declare that “the Law Office will evaluate the decision and what comes from it”? Does anyone realise whose conduct is perhaps chronically inappropriate, and that it is always the plebs who pay the price, becoming grease in the cogs of the system’s meat grinder?
